Profiling five former top prospects in the AL who have to make a move this season or risk being busts.

Following the development of baseball prospects can be a heart-wrenching addiction. The can’t-miss wunderkinds miss, the overlooked organizational soldiers earn major-league roles out of nowhere, and players you’ve grown fond of slowly fade out of the top 10s, top 20s, and top 100s as the years pass.

The five players highlighted below were all, at one time or another, considered potential major-league stars. Ineffectiveness, failure to make adjustments, and injuries have contributed to their collective fall from grace, and all five now face a make-or-break summer that will either re-establish them as prospects or push them into non-prospect territory.

Like the rest of us, baseball players are sports fans, and for some that passion extends to soccer. Lars Anderson and Ryan Kalish, two of the top prospects in the Red Sox organization, can be counted among that group. With the World Cup final -- Holland versus Spain -- coming up on Sunday, Anderson and Kalish shared their thoughts on the world’s most popular sporting event.

The Red Sox prospect talks about life out on the diamond and on the inside.

Lars Anderson is more than just one of the top hitting prospects in the game, because the 20-year-old native of Carmichael, California is also one of the most thoughtful and intellectually curious. Anderson bypassed a scholarship to Cal-Berkeley to sign with the Red Sox in 2006, and began this season in High-A. After shining there, he has continued to wield a potent bat since a mid-July promotion to Double-A Portland. The lefty-swinging Anderson, a 6'4" 215 pound first baseman, is hitting .317/.410/.520 with 16 home runs on the season, and impressing scouts along the way.